The vehicle washing industry has gone through a number of changes over the past few decades, with the start of the automatic conveyor friction wash. These were easy and fast, but they gained a reputation for being rough on vehicles, sometimes to the point of ripping off mirrors, antennas and scratching paint.
To solve this, the touch free car wash was developed. This won popularity with customers over a very short time because it was safe, gentle on the vehicle and worked moderately well. With these systems a vehicle must park while a machine moves around it. The vehicle is then soaked with high and low pH cleaner and then cleaned with the high pressure water. Most touch-free car washes are “roll-over” systems. This means that a vehicle parks as a robotic piece of equipment moves back forth and around the parked vehicle. On average this type of wash can only clean 15 cars per hour. This, combined with high soap costs put pressure on the owners and, beginning to feel the pinch and they made up their losses by cutting back on the only variable cost; their soaps. Although the customers liked the idea of the touch free wash, it earned a reputation of being slow and often not cleaning well due to the costs cutting. This ultimately caused the decline of the touch free wash in the industry as a whole. As a result, the wash industry has been turning back to the friction conveyor wash. These do not require or use sensors to determine the width of the vehicle. This is partly because the washing apparatus is meant to contact the vehicle. Although the technology has improved there is still an inherent risk with an automated machine touching a vehicle to clean it. Even the best friction car wash technology will eventually damage a vehicle and likely miss spots while cleaning. Further, the brushes and fabrics wear out because of the friction and therefore must be replaced.
Examples of touchless car washes include U.S. Pat. Nos. 8,550,098 and 8,443,818 which disclose a carwash system wherein a spray arm dependingly mounted to an overhead longitudinally movable carriage for dispensing fluids onto the exterior surfaces of a vehicle in a wash bay unidirectionally circumnavigates the vehicle for multiple circuits while performing one or more wash functions by coordinating longitudinal and rotational movements of the arm through the selective operation of two independent motor drives. Electrical power and/or data is carried to and from electrical devices on the arm by way of a slip ring conductor which is mounted coaxially with the arm pivot on the bottom side of the carriage. The fluid supply conduit also passes concentrically through this pivot. In both this patent and in U.S. Pat. No. 8,539,968 the vehicle remains stationary as the spray arm circles it. Sensors determine the front and back of the vehicle, but do not accurately map the shape of the car, hence the sprayers can only be positioned accurately with regard the front and back of the vehicle. As noted above, in addition to this deficiency, the quality of the wash is inferior. Further, as there are a limited number of sensors, there is the potential for damaging the vehicle by contact being made with the rotating arms.
U.S. Pat. No. 8,448,653 discloses a car wash system comprising at least one rotatable spray arm depending from an overhead carriage. The arm is equipped with a detent-type compound breakaway knuckle which permits the arm to be displaced upwardly from a lowest potential energy orientation by disengaging the detent but thereafter permitting a smooth essentially unresisted movement whereby when the force tending to cause angular displacement and the arm is removed, the arm returns to the normal operating, low potential energy position. A shaker function or a high pressure spray burst may be used to complement the gravitational resetting function as needed. The spray arm is provided with a breakaway knuckle to reduce damaged to vehicles, however, it must contact the vehicle and be met with resistance in order to function. As noted above, in addition to this deficiency, the quality of the wash is inferior.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,769,440 discloses a vehicle loading system for the wash bay of an automatic vehicle wash system that eliminates the use of a floor-mounted target to capture the front tire of the vehicle to be washed. The vehicle wash system includes a pair of side position sensors that detect and create a side profile of the vehicle as the vehicle enters into the wash bay. The vehicle wash system includes a front sensor array that includes a plurality of through-beam sensors that detect the front bumper of a vehicle and signal the vehicle operator to stop when the front bumper is in the correct position. An overhead sensor contained on the overhead gantry detects the top profile of the vehicle positioned within the open wash bay. A control unit receives the information from the variety of sensors and operates the overhead gantry based upon the detected parameters of the vehicle. An overhead spray arm is rotatably mounted on the gantry. This system is simply for locating the vehicle correctly on the loading system.
US Publication No. 20130291909 discloses a shape-changing spray arch for a “touchless” spray washer for automotive vehicles and the like. A transit frame which can change shape is mounted in a fixed arch frame and connected to an actuator which changes the shape of the side and top spray conduits in a reciprocal fashion as vehicles pass through the arch. In addition, the spray conduits, both side and top conduits, can be twisted or reoriented around their respective longitudinal axes to be aimed more toward an approaching vehicle and then reoriented to be aimed more toward a receding vehicle, the change in angular orientation being effected as the vehicle passes through the arch. These features can be used separately or in combination. As noted above, the quality of the wash is inferior.
US Publication No. 20070246088 discloses an improved exterior rollover vehicle washing machine and/or cleaning system including an external frame, a gantry having no internal propulsion, a motor, a drive line/pulley system, at least two washer arm assemblies, a water supply line and a chemical supply line. In one embodiment, the motor has belt and pulley members to move the gantry back and forth along a frame track. The washer arms can move horizontally alongside the vehicle from vehicle front to vehicle back, as well as horizontally toward and away from the vehicle. The washer arms can further be pivotally mounted to the gantry so as to move within a 90 degree range such that the water supply line and/or chemical supply line can rotate from approximately 45 degrees to one side of the normal line directed at the vehicle to 45 degrees on the other side of the normal line directed at the vehicle. This system touches the vehicle and is therefore undesirable.
Wheel washing assemblies are also provided for car washes. U.S. Pat. No. 7,677,258 discloses a wheel washing assembly that contains a machine frame, a pendulum assembly pivotably supported on the machine frame, and two washing manifolds, including a first washing manifold and a second washing manifold, attached to the pendulum assembly. Each of the washing manifolds has a nozzle assembly for ejecting water at a wheel to be washed. The washing manifolds are pivotable between a start washing position and an end washing position by an automatic motion of the pendulum assembly. The washing manifolds further automatically track the wheels to be washes by a motion of one of the wheels.
As noted above, the earlier car washes included a conveyer system for moving the vehicle through the washing assembly. Some of these can be as long as 120 feet or more. Examples of the conveyers used to transport the vehicle include U.S. Pat. No. 4,576,098. It discloses a guided track that extends along the floor surface and a conveyor mechanism that is oriented in an elongated trench below the floor immediately under the guided track. On demand, a dolly will rise out of an opening at the entrance end of the conveyor for engaging the tire of a vehicle which has been properly staged in the conveyor. The dolly will gradually advance the vehicle along the conveyor until the vehicle exits and the dolly drops below floor level to begin its said return flight. It should be noted that dollies have two alternative paths on the drive flight, one path below floor level where the dolly is totally out of the way and an alternative path above floor level within the guided track for engaging the vehicle tire. Dollies can be spaced sufficiently close together so as to enable a series of automobiles being translated along the conveyor to be positioned relatively close apart to achieve maximum vehicle through put. Below the floor conveyors are widely used in North America and function quite satisfactorily, however, they are expensive to install due to the required concrete work necessary to embed the conveyor below the floor surface.
For this reason, the same inventor, in U.S. Pat. No. 5,443,014 discloses an above the floor conveyor for transporting a wheeled vehicle having a plurality of tires across a floor surface with a pair of the vehicle's tires oriented in a guided track. The conveyor includes a drive and idle sprocket which are spaced apart and have an endless tensile member extending in a loop thereabout to define a drive and a return flight. A series of dolly assemblies are attached to the endless conveyor tensile member in spaced apart orientation. The dolly assemblies have an elongated dolly roller for engaging a tire of a vehicle located within the guided track. The dollies are pivotable about a generally vertical dolly axis between an inactive position in which the dolly roller is pivoted rearwardly out of the guided tracks and an active position in which a dolly roller extends inwardly into the guided track. The dolly assembly has an arm extending outwardly from the pivot axis providing a follower spaced from the axis. A dolly guide rail is fixed parallel to the drive flight for cooperating with the dolly follower to support the dolly when in the active position. An actuator is provided to selectively shift the dolly between the inactive and active positions on demand.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,981,523 discloses a fluid distribution apparatus is provided which includes a sensor for developing control signals representative of the profile of a vehicle to be cleaned and a tube for distributing fluid. The tube is movable horizontally in directions parallel to the path of a vehicle being cleaned and vertically toward and away from the path of the vehicle. Movements of the tube are controlled to position the tube in front of the vehicle and move the tube in the direction of movement of the vehicle and to position the tube above the vehicle and move the tube in a direction opposite that of the vehicle and simultaneously move the tube vertically to follow the profile of the vehicle. The tube is also positioned behind the vehicle and moved in the direction of the vehicle after the profiling. Oscillatory movement of the tube about a plurality of angular positions is also provided. The vehicle is propelled through the car wash on a conveyer.
What is needed is a touchless vehicle wash system that can accurately map the dimensions of the vehicle, then using that information, adjust the cleaning apparatus as the vehicle moves along the car wash. This would preferable position the cleaner a suitable distance from essentially all exterior parts of the car, which in turn would ensure that the vehicle is cleaned. This would preferably occur as a potential stream of vehicles are rapidly propelled through the cleaning apparatus. It would be of even greater advantage if the number of moving parts was minimized. It would be a greater advantage if the system functioned as an assembly line as this would permit continued operation of the wash. It would allow loading more than one vehicle at a time, thereby greatly increasing the number of vehicles that can be processed in a given time.
Yet another advantage would be sprayers specifically designed to clean the bumpers.